


Once upon a time

by FancifulRivers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Misgendering, Poisoning, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 01:44:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5849113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulRivers/pseuds/FancifulRivers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a child and a hole. And the child fell down the hole into a world of monsters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once upon a time

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Undertale.

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

Well- everyone called you a girl, and you thought you were a girl (albeit an exceptionally broken one), but you weren't, really. You didn't want to be anything, truth be told, and when you told your parents this, they called you a monster and slapped you and told you never to say that again.

So you didn't. 

Once upon a time, you ran away.

You didn't know where you were going, but you knew you didn't want to be where you'd just been. So you ran and ran, straight up a mountain. And you recognized this mountain, because nobody who climbed up it ever came back down.

That suited you just fine.

You didn't want to die, not yet, but the choice was snatched away when you tripped and plummeted down a hole, straight into the earth. And you screamed (but just a little bit) on the way down, because you knew it was going to hurt a lot, and you didn't want to be splattered across rocks and strewn across dirt.

But you didn't die.

You landed in flowers and it hurt- it hurt a lot actually- but you were still breathing. And you cried for help (just a small cry), and someone came.

He was small and fluffy and you had never seen anything like him. He looked a bit like a goat and he bleated while he helped you up and said "howdy" and you found out his name was Asriel and he wasn't alone down there.

And then you were afraid, because a little child monster like you was one thing, but big monsters might be like your parents, might be like your neighbors and the people at school who taunted you and threw rocks at you on the way home. Big monsters might be like humans, you thought.

You were wrong.

Asriel's mother was named Toriel and Asriel's father was named Asgore. And they  _were_ big, but they had red eyes like you did, and they smiled until their smiles reached their eyes (and that wasn't like your parents, not at all, their smiles were always tight and too wide and their eyes were like shiny pennies). And Toriel made you pie and Asgore made you tea, and it felt cozy, sitting in that kitchen all bandaged up with a cane nearby in case it was too hard to walk. It felt like a family, and you had never felt like that before.

And you admitted, in a tiny voice, that your name was Chara.

Asriel said that was a nice name, and his parents agreed, and some line of tension you hadn't even known was there vanished, relaxing your shoulders and the sway of your spine. You said you had to move on, not that there was anywhere to move on  _to_ , but before you knew it, you were ensconced in the other half of Asriel's bedroom, in a brand-new green-and-yellow-striped sweater and a blanket that smelled like home.

You liked it.

Asriel didn't push you around or sneer at your "creepy face." He laughed and smiled and took videos with a funny old camcorder. He got you chocolate and helped you ask Toriel, when you saw her one day, whether or not she could teach you to knit. He was pants at it, but he tried anyway, because you were too embarrassed to do it alone. Toriel read bedtime stories and Asgore let you hug him whenever you felt sad (which was more often than you ever wanted to admit).

Once upon a time, you made a mistake.

You laughed, because laughter was like crying, because you just wanted to make a pie, because you just wanted to play a prank. You didn't know that buttercups were poisonous and the guilt felt like you swallowed a boulder whole. Asriel told you it was okay, he would understand, you didn't mean to, but they felt like empty platitudes, and you snapped at him and ran away.

You didn't run far, just into the garden, but it was there, sitting on your heels and wiping your nose on your sleeve, you thought maybe you could make up for it. Maybe you could fix what you'd done and save everyone that deserved it.

It hurt.

Everything hurt, and you wished you had chosen a faster method of suicide when you saw Asriel's wet eyes and trembling snout. His paws shook when he handed you the next flower and you pushed it into your mouth with gusto, feeling your teeth shred the petals, feeling the blisters bloom on your tongue. You coughed, and blood flowered across a handkerchief. 

You just wanted to help.

It didn't work. You died, and you knew you died, and you expected to die, but you didn't expect Asriel to die. And he wouldn't hurt anyone else, no matter how much they hurt him, and you screamed at him with every ounce of strength you could, because he was  _dying_ and it was  _your fault_ and everything had gone so terribly wrong-

Once upon a time, another child fell down amongst the monsters. They fell down on top of your grave and stirred you; you still didn't know how. They were a child like you, and they were not-a-girl like you, and they had bruises on their knees and scrapes on their elbows like you had. They liked Toriel's pie and traded puns with Sans and pretended to like Papyrus's spaghetti. Or maybe they really did like it. You couldn't tell.

You hated them.

Perhaps it was more correct to say that you envied them, because they were alive, and you were not, because Toriel loved them, and she had grieved you. Because you weren't supposed to be replaced, but you knew Frisk was so much better.

They told you they weren't. They told you that you had done your best. They told you it wasn't your fault, even as they dodged blow after blow from Flowey. The stick you held in your hand was a poor substitute for a knife, but it was all Frisk had. They told you that you had determination, too, as their energy deflated faster than a balloon animal, and they began to sink to their knees.

You didn't want them to die, too.

You didn't know how you did it. They didn't either. You flung yourself in front of them heedlessly, recklessly, and they had so little HP left, you could probably breathe on them the wrong way and they would topple, but they didn't.

Frisk saved the world.

But you helped.

You didn't know how you got your body back, but you were quietly relieved it wasn't moldering around the edges. You hung back, pretending to examine the foliage, when Frisk darted ahead, into Toriel's and Asgore's arms. You didn't look because you didn't want it to hurt.

"Chara," Asriel's impatient voice floated back, and then you were being yanked forward, and Mom and Dad were hugging you, and it felt like everything good in your life balled up into one.

Once upon a time, you fell down a hole in a mountain and found a world of monsters. And family. And (eventually) lived happily ever after.


End file.
